Will The New Caliphate Unite The Middle East Against It?

There is no longer an Jihadist ISIS or ISIL in Syria and Iraq. The people leading that entity declared (pdf) today, at the highly symbolic beginning of Ramadan, themselves to be a new caliphate:

Therefore, the shūrā (consultation) council of the Islamic State studied this matter after the Islamic State – by Allah’s grace – gained the essentials necessary for khilāfah, which the Muslims are sinful for if they do not try to establish. In light of the fact that the Islamic State has no shar’ī(legal) constraint or excuse that can justify delaying or neglecting the establishment of the khilāfah such that it would not be sinful, the Islamic State – represented by ahlul-halli-al-‘aqd (its people of authority), consisting of its senior figures, leaders, and the shūrā council – resolved to announce the establishment of the Islamic khilāfah, the appointment of a khalīfah for the Muslims, and the pledge of allegiance to the shaykh (sheikh), the mujāhid, the scholar who practices what he preaches, the worshipper, the leader, the warrior, the reviver, descendent from the family of the Prophet, the slave of Allah, Ibrāhīm Ibn ‘Awwād Ibn Ibrāhīm Ibn ‘Alī Ibn Muhammad al-Badrīal-Hāshimī al-Husaynī al-Qurashī by lineage, as-Sāmurrā’ī by birth and upbringing, al-Baghdādī by residence and scholarship. And he has accepted the bay’ah (pledge of allegiance). Thus, he is the imam and khalīfah for the Muslims everywhere. Accordingly, the “Iraq and Shām” in the name of the Islamic State is henceforth removed from all official deliberations and communications, and the official name is the Islamic State from the date of this declaration.

A caliphate, in its self-conception, is the only legal entity to rule above all Muslims.

With this declaration al-Baghdadi also declared war on all monarchs and other rulers in the Middle East. He will soon likely call for offensive jihad against them. This might now unite all the notoriously discordant Gulf countries against this new Islamic State.

There are already signs of this. The Saudis are said to have now, in sight of the danger, even agreed to let the Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki go for a new term. This might set them in opposition to Washington which, as the one trick pony it is, had called again for regime change in Iraq.

It will be interesting to see the reaction from Turkey, the rearward logistic base for ISIS, now IS. Erdogan surely would not mind a new caliphate but he will have objections against one in which he isn't the Caliph ruling it. So will we now see, now confronted with a new common enemy, a real united response of all Middle East countries against this new danger?

Syria: Obama Prolongs The Conflict

President Obama requested $500 million from Congress on Thursday to train and equip what the White House is calling “appropriately vetted” members of the Syrian opposition, reflecting increased worry about the spillover of the Syrian conflict into Iraq.

The move is somewhat lunatic. Pumping more weapons and fighters into the Syrian conflict will only escalate it and will negatively affect the security situation in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. This is thereby certainly not about "worry" of spillovers. August last year Edwald Luttwak argued that the U.S. wins it both side continue to fight and that the U.S. should prolong the conflict as long as possible:

Maintaining a stalemate should be America’s objective. And the only possible method for achieving this is to arm the rebels when it seems that Mr. Assad’s forces are ascendant and to stop supplying the rebels if they actually seem to be winning.

It seems that Obama is, even at the cost of wider regional fallout, following this policy.

The Obama spokepersons deserve another Orwell medal:

“While we continue to believe that there is no military solution to this crisis and that the United States should not put American troops into combat in Syria, this request marks another step toward helping the Syrian people defend themselves against regime attacks,” Caitlin Hayden, a National Security Council spokeswoman, said in a statement.

The biggest danger for civilians and the Free Syrian Army, who's official heads have just (again) been fired for graft, are not the government forces but the Jihadists.

The U.S. has already trained "appropriately vetted" rebels for at least two years now and has delivered tons of weapons to them. Those weapons ended up in Jihadists hands and the "vetted" rebels are now either dead or have joined AlQaeda aligned groups. The new training will likely take some six month before those trained are somewhat ready. The Syrian government will by then be in a better position than today and the main enemy for everyone else in the field will be ISIS. It will not surprise me when those "appropriately vetted" rebels will join either the government side or ISIS as soon as they are back inside Syria.

Ukraine: The Association Agreement Is Likely To Fail

The temporary truce in Ukraine will soon be over and the Ukrainian army will then try to squash the insurgency by all possible means. It is unlikely to achieve that.

Today the coup president signed an EU association agreement in Brussels. The preferred trade status with Russia will thereby be over and the Ukraine will fall into a deep depression. Its industry is not competitive against western European ones and it can not be sustained without the Russian markets. The most knowledgeable engineers and workers, especially from the big weapon producers, will move to Russia and leave the Ukrainian industry to rot.

The association agreement has always been seen in highly politicized and symbolic terms as a “civilizational choice” in which Ukraine would be able to leave behind its dark, eastern past and march forward into the safety and comfort of the European Union. This was a huge mistake. In reality the association agreement has nothing to do with culture or history and is much more basic: a highly technocratic bit of economic liberalization. There is no “European” way to end gas subsidies, and no “civilized” way to cut pensions. These steps are either taken or they are avoided. Since economic liberalization is not very popular in Ukraine, since Ukrainians continues to express extremely left-wing economic views, the struggle to implement free trade is likely to be long and nasty.

The agreement will still have to be signed off, and then implemented, by a new Ukrainian parliament. I seriously doubt that will happen.

Meanwhile the fighting in the east will continue and, when the coming push by the army fails as it is likely to do, will see further steps towards more independence for the eastern regions.

Israel: Advertising A Shitty Product May Cause Problems

Taking the risk of ruffling a few feathers, Yigal Palmor, the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, attributed Israel’s poor image to the possibility that too much is being done to create positive attitudes toward the country. ... There is no reason for an Italian, a Spaniard, or a Frenchman to have a particular opinion about Israel, he observed, but they do have opinions, “because we endlessly reach out to them.” Then they start to think for themselves about Israel, and the effect may be quite different to what was intended.

Imagine that: People start thinking for themselves about turds and conclude that turds stink.

U.S. "Intelligence": Nothing For Something

In the same briefing, the [senior U.S. intelligence] official [who briefed reporters this week] disclosed that U.S. intelligence did not know who controlled Iraq’s largest oil refinery. And she suggested that one of the biggest sources of intelligence for American analysts is Facebook and Twitter postings.

The U.S. spent nearly $72 billion on intelligence gathering in 2013, ...

That is quite a lot of money for looking at amateur porn and digesting unintelligible short messages.

Obama's Selfmade Foreign Policy Problem

He is talking too much.

Kerry went to Egypt, delivered money and weapons and was shown the finger over his human rights laments. Kerry went to Iraq, delivered some military support and demanded a "unity government". Maliki's government already includes Kurds and Sunnis and he just won elections. So Kerry gets shown the finger. Kerry went to Erbil and demanded that the Kurds stick to Iraq. They have all the oil they want. Kerry gets shown the finger. Obama wants more sanctions on Russia but needs the Europeans to join. But why should the Europeans ruin their economies over this? Obama will be likely shown the finger.

The U.S. public dislikes Obama's foreign policies. There are two main reasons for this.

One might expect that Obama would by now have learned not to promise fancy foreign policy stuff he can not deliver on. But as there is no disincentive in Washington for being wrong on foreign policy - watch the recent neocon Iraq war revival shows - Obama can, for a while, go on doing such nonsense. There are two dangers evolving from this:

Obama might issue a warning or threat that is for once meant seriously and followed through but gets misjudged by an adversary because of his record (think North Korea).

Obama might feel, on a minor issue, to have to follow through on some of his unnecessary threats because he has to show that he is "serious".

In both cases unnecessary wars could ensue.

Someone better tell Obama and Kerry to just shut up. The U.S. public dislikes their hyperactive foreign policy. 58% do not want the U.S to take a leading role.

One does not need, even has "superpower", to have an opinion or policy position on every issue in this world. Intervening, even if only by words, in each and every minor issue is usually just an expression of a rather shallow understanding of the world.

Where Will ISIS Go Next?

Elijah J. Magnier has an interesting interview with an ISIS commander, Abu Baqr-al-Janabi, in Baghdad. There are plans for ISIS to take the city and there are apparently sleeper cells of fighters waiting for the big attack signal. But, says the commander, ISIS and the attached other forces, will first have to consolidate their positions and eliminate Iraqi government position in their back. The Iraqi government is already giving up some outer position and is consolidating its side by securing only Baghdad, the south and some economically important assets.

The 300 military "advisers" the U.S. had announced to send to Iraqi headquarters will likely never arrive. There is disagreement over their legal status and the Iraqi government, given the U.S. commitment to another regime change in Baghdad, may well conclude that these soldiers would likely be malign actors rather than trustworthy allies. The Maliki government, like the Iranians, probably sees the whole ISIS attack as the result of a U.S. conspiracy.

My hunch for now is that ISIS will not go for the big fight in Baghdad in the near term but will rather try to launch some substantial diversion elsewhere. In the introduction of the interview Magnier writes:

ISIS’s aim is not Iraq and Syria, it is the Levant and beyond. It includes Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel and more. “No Limits”, as I am told.

There was a pro-ISIS demonstration today in Ma'an, "Jordan's Fallujah" (video). Just like ISIS had sleeper cells within the Iraqi military it may well have some within the Jordanian forces or secret services. The road between Baghdad and Jordan is in ISIS's hand as well as the border crossing to Jordan. Involving Jordan would certainly see a military reaction from Washington. That is something which, according to the interview, ISIS would very much want. Could ISIS go, if only as diversion, for Amman before taking on Baghdad?

Kerrry Being Shown The Finger

After a 90-minute meeting with Mr. Sisi, Mr. Kerry said at a news conference here that he had come to reaffirm Washington’s “historic partnership” with Egypt. ... Mr. Kerry expressed firm confidence that the United States would soon fully restore $650 million — the first tranche of the $1.3 billion in annual aid — to the military that the Obama administration had partly withheld after the takeover. ... Addressing a previously suspended shipment of 10 Apache helicopter gunships that the Egyptian military has been especially eager for, Mr. Kerry said he was just as confident “that the Apaches will come, and that they will come very, very soon.” ... Mr. Kerry said they had talked about the verdict expected Monday in the case of three journalists who have been jailed since December on politicized charges without any publicly disclosed evidence of a crime. ... Sounding hopeful, Mr. Kerry said that the new president “gave me a very strong sense of his commitment”to “a re-evaluation of human rights legislation” and “a re-evaluation of the judicial process.”

So that "strong commitment", payed for with hundreds of millions U.S. taxpayer dollars, some attack helicopters and the kowtowing of Kerry, was worth what?

A judge on Monday convicted three journalists of conspiring with the Muslim Brotherhood to broadcast false reports of civil strife in Egypt.

Two of the journalists were sentenced to seven years in prison, and the third was given 10 years, the three additional years apparently for his possession of a single spent bullet.

I have followed the rial. It was an obvious sham. The "evidence" mostly consisted of unrelated video tapes taken in other countries by other journalists.

Sisi has publicly shown Kerry the big finger and there is nothing Kerry can or will do about it but releasing a angry statement. Israel demands that the U.S. keeps Egypt's ruler happy and the Pentagon demands continued preferred access to the Suez Canal.

The episode is a nice demonstration of for U.S. power and influence in the Middle East (not).

Iraq: The U.S. Has No Role In This

The ISIS/former Baathist/Sunni alliance in Iraq is consolidating its position in north-west Iraq. It has captured border post towards Syria and now also towards Jordan. The last item will let red lights flash in Washington and elsewhere.

Nobody wants Kerry's "help". The threat thereof unites even strong antagonists. Iran as well as the Saudis are against any U.S. intervention or "help" in Iraq. The Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki would probably like some U.S. support for his disintegrating army but will rather go it alone if such support is connected with demands for him to leave his position.

And is Kerry really asking Sisi, the new brutal dictator of Egypt, for support? What could that jailer of a bancrupt nation do? He will neither be for Maliki nor will he support the Jihadists. There is no alternative to those two in sight. Sisi will simply take the bribes Kerry brings in support of Israel and leave it at that.

There is nothing Kerry can do for Iraqis. Unites States policies in the Middle East have run their course. Their impotence was shown through two lost wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its incompetence demonstrated in the contradictoriness of "promoting democracy" on one side while supporting radical religious dictatorships in the Gulf. A step out of that would be an U.S. alliance with Iran but such a radical policy change would likely be ripped apart within Washington's polical circus.

It is not only in the Middle East where U.S. polices lead to disillusions of allies and to shaking of the head by foes. Consider what even the neoconned Polish Foreign Minister thinks of U.S. "friendship":

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, generally viewed as a leading ally of the United States in Europe, said in a mysteriously-leaked recording Sunday that the alliance between the two countries is “not worth anything.”

“The Polish-American alliance is not worth anything. It’s even damaging, because it creates a false sense of security in Poland,” Sikorski says on an excerpt of a longer conversation set to be published Monday morning in the magazine Wprost, which is reportedly between Sikorski and former finance minister Jacek Rostowski. ... “We are gonna conflict with both Russians and Germans, and we’re going to think that everything is great, because we gave the Americans a blowjob. Suckers. Total suckers,” Sikorski says, according to a translation of the account for BuzzFeed.

The U.S. should stay out of Iraq. Local forces there will battle it out and the sponsors of each side will find their common interest and some agreement. They already agree on one major point. The U.S. has no role in this.

Who "Interferes" In Iraq?

Iran has sent "small numbers" of operatives into Iraq to bolster the Shiite-led government in Baghdad, but there is no sign of a large deployment of army units, the Pentagon said Friday. ..."There are some Iranian revolutionary operatives in Iraq but I've seen no indication of ground forces or major units," [Pentagon spokesman Admiral John] Kirby told a news conference, apparently referring to Tehran's Quds force, the covert arm of the Revolutionary Guard Corps...."Their interference in Iraq is nothing new," Kirby said. ...President Barack Obama announced Thursday plans to send up to 300 US military advisers to Iraq but stopped short of ordering air strikes against ISIL forces, though he left the door open to that possibility.

Open Thread 2014-14

U.S. Again Gunning For "Regime Change" In Iraq

The U.S. has conditioned any involvement on the Iraqi government side on a change in its structure towards some "unity government" that would include representatives of the rebellious Sunni strains. Prime Minister Maliki, who received good results in the recent elections, will see no reason to go for that.

As expected Maliki declined to follow orders out of Washington DC and he is right to do so. Isn't Iraq supposed to be a sovereign state?

Over the past two days the American ambassador, Robert S. Beecroft, along with Brett McGurk, the senior State Department official on Iraq and Iran, have met with Usama Nujaifi, the leader of the largest Sunni contingent, United For Reform, and with Ahmad Chalabi, one of the several potential Shiite candidates for prime minister, according to people close to each of those factions, as well as other political figures.

“Brett and the ambassador met with Mr. Nujaifi yesterday and they were open about this, they do not want Maliki to stay,” Nabil al-Khashab, the senior political adviser to Mr. Nujaifi, said Thursday.

This move lets arouse suspicions that the recent insurgency against the Iraqi state, with ISIS takfiris in the front line, did not just by chance started after Maliki's party, the State of Law Coalition, won in the parliamentary elections a few weeks ago. It had been decided that he had to go. When the elections confirmed him, other methods had to be introduced. Thus the insurgency started and is now used as a pretext for "regime change".

The U.S. media and policies again fall for the "big bad man" cliche portraying Nouri al-Maliki (Arabic for Ngo Dinh Diem) as the only person that stands in the way of Iraq as a "liberal democracy". That is of course nonsense. Maliki is not the problem in Iraq:

The most significant factor behind Iraq’s problems has been the inability of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs and its Sunni neighbors to come to terms with a government in which the Shias, by virtue of their considerable majority in Iraq’s population, hold the leading role. This inability was displayed early on, when Iraq’s Sunnis refused to take part in Iraq’s first parliamentary elections, and resorted to insurgency almost immediately after the US invasion and fall of Saddam Hussein. All along, the goal of Iraqi Sunnis has been to prove that the Shias are not capable of governing Iraq. Indeed, Iraq’s Sunni deputy prime minister, Osama al Najafi, recently verbalized this view. The Sunnis see political leadership and governance to be their birthright and resent the Shia interlopers.

The U.S., with strong support from its GCC allies who finance the insurgency, now seems to again lean towards the Sunni minority side in Iraq and wants to subvert the ruling of a Shia majority and its candidate. Maliki doesn't follow Washington orders, is somewhat friendly with Iran and even wins elections. Such man can not be let standing.

So the program is again "regime change" in Iraq, now with the help of Jihadists proxies, even after the recent catastrophic "successes" in similar endeavors in Libya, Egypt and Ukraine and the failure in Syria.

The ISIS-led insurgency currently gripping the western and northern regions of Iraq is but a continuation of the imperialist-sponsored insurgency in neighboring Syria. The state actors responsible for arming and funding said insurgency hold the same principal objectives in Iraq as those pursued in Syria for the last three years, namely: the destruction of state sovereignty; weakening the allies of an independent Iran; the permanent division of Iraq and Syria along sectarian lines establishing antagonistic “mini-states” incapable of forming a unified front against US/Israeli imperial domination.

The best thing Maliki could now do is to shut down the U.S. embassy and request support from Russia, China and Iran. South Iraq is producing lots of oil and neither money nor the number of potential recruits for a big long fight are his problem. His problem is the insurgency and the states, including the United States, behind it. The fight would be long and Iraq would still likely be parted but the likely outcome would at least guarantee that the will of the majority constituency can not be ignored by outside actors.

Jordan, Turkey Rehabilitate The "Moderate" Jabhat Al-Nusra - Updated

UPDATE:

There was earlier some miscommunication regarding the Turkish move to delist Jabhat al-Nusra from its terror list. Al-Nusra was removed from one list but is still on others:

The Turkish government has removed the al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate fighting against the Syrian regime, from its list of terrorist organizations falling under the category of “al-Qaeda in Iraq,” and has designated the radical group as a separate terrorist organization.

The move first caused confusion and led to questions over Turkey's stance regarding the group.

Even with that in mind some of the questions asked below are still relvant.

END UPDATE (Original post follows)

Last October we detected a media campaign to introduce the moderate cuddly homegrown AlQaeda differentiating between the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as the new savages and AlQaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic Front in Syria as the friendly moderate gang around the local block. The campaign was running through reports in the New York Times, Washington Post and Foreign Policy. We asked:

It is well known that ISIS has [earlier] sworn allegiance to Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri. But Jabhat al-Nusra has also sworn allegiance to Zwahiri. That is of course not mentioned in the above NYT piece. What is the supposed meaning of this differentiation when both groups accept the same leader and the Al-Qaeda organization's ideology and aims?

In January this year CNN followed up asserting that the Islamic Front in Syria, which is largely just an outlet of Jabhat al-Nusra and who's leaders openly consider themselves to be AlQaeda, are "moderates" but:

The leading figure of the leading group within the Islamic Front is an al-Qaeda operative. The Islamic Front does not want a democratic state but an Islamic caliphate.

Now, as ISIS is the new bad guy playing storm troopers and Einsatzkommando for tribal Iraqi Sunnis and Baath part remnants in Iraq, the AlQaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra is officially rehabilitated as a not-terrorist group.

Consider:

Yesterday the leading AlQaeda ideologue Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi was released from prison in Jordan. A book about al-Maqdisi describes him:

Since 9/ll, the Jordanian Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi (b. West Bank, 1959) has emerged as one of the most important radical Muslim thinkers alive today. While al-Maqdisi may not be a household name in the West, his influence amongst like-minded Muslims stretches across the world from Jordan - where he lives today - to Southeast Asia. His writings and teachings on Salafi Islam have inspired terrorists from Europe to the Middle East, including Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of al-Qa'ida in Iraq, and Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden's successor as the head of al-Qa'ida Central.

Why would Jordan, largely run by the CIA, release al-Maqdisi right now when ISIS is threatening to add Jordan to its targets? The Qatar run AlJazeera explains:

"Maqdesi is a supporter of al-Nusra front, one of the fighting groups in Syria, which unlike ISIL, does not have any ambitions to take over the region," said Hasan Abu Hanya, an expert on jihadist movements.

Its goal is to overthrow the Assad government and to create an Pan-Islamic state under the Sharia (the moral code and religious law of Islam) and aims to reinstate the Caliphate.

To claim otherwise, like "expert" Hasan Abu Hanya, is a lie. Any difference between ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra is only minor.

Only two weeks ago Turkey blacklisted Jabhat al-Nusra, cutting it off from its logistics in that country. But today, a day after Jordan released al-Maqdisi, Turkey took Jabhat al-Nusra off its terrorist list.

Removing Jabhat al-Nusra (operational mainly in Syria) means #JAN can have access again 2Turkey support or logistic

In the last two days two U.S. allies renewed their open support for the AlQaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra to help it fight in Syria.

What is Washington going to say about these actions by its allies? What do Jordan and Turkey believe Jabhat al-Nusra will do should it win in Syria. Do they really expect that its fighters would retire and not threaten either country? These actions, prepared by earlier "moderate" claims in the media, are likely to have been cleared with Washington. Is the Obama administration hoping that the recent uproar about ISIS in Iraq will divert attention from these moves?

No, Baghdad Did Not Collapse

Yossi Melman is "an Israeli writer and journalist. He was an intelligence and strategic affairs correspondent for the Haaretz newspaper, and in 2012 he joined the Israeli news portal Walla! in a similar, more analytical role."

Pat Lang clearly believes that such an offense in Baghdad by the remnants of the Baathist Iraqi military with ISIS takfiris as its shock troops is possible. He urges immediate evacuation of U.S. personal. But I believe there is only a rather small chance that such could happen. Various Shia militia are deploying to secure Baghdad and other cities and Iranian advisers are on the ground. Iran sees the onslaught as a US/Israeli/Saudi/Qatari conspiracy and will act accordingly.

The U.S. has conditioned any involvement on the Iraqi government side on a change in its structure towards some "unity government" that would include representatives of the rebellious Sunni strains. Prime Minister Maliki, who received good results in the reecent elections, will see no reason to go for that.

I expect a repeat in Iraq of what has happened in Syria. The government forces retreat from the first onslaughts by ISIS, the Baathists and other forces but will then consolidate and slowly, slowly regain the upper hand and ground.

Mehlman's tweet sounds to me like the "Aleppo has fallen" panic a certain Syria "expert" created 20 month ago. Funny. by the way, how none of the journalists in Baghdad confirms any point of what Yossi Melman is asserting. Maybe some Mossad commander was daydreaming and told him about it?

Neocon Kagan: Hillary Clinton Is One Of Us

Here is the reason why Hillary Clinton should never ever become President of the United States.

A (sympathetic) New York Times profile of neocon Robert Kagan has this on Clinton II:

But Exhibit A for what Robert Kagan describes as his “mainstream” view of American force is his relationship with former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who remains the vessel into which many interventionists are pouring their hopes. Mr. Kagan pointed out that he had recently attended a dinner of foreign-policy experts at which Mrs. Clinton was the guest of honor, and that he had served on her bipartisan group of foreign-policy heavy hitters at the State Department, where his wife worked as her spokeswoman.

“I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy,” Mr. Kagan said, adding that the next step after Mr. Obama’s more realist approach “could theoretically be whatever Hillary brings to the table” if elected president. “If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue,” he added, “it’s something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else.”

Want more wars with terrible outcomes and no winner at all? Vote the neocon's vessel, Hillary Clinton.

Clinton, by the way, is also a coward, unprincipled and greedy. Her achievements as Secretary of State were about zero. Why would anyone vote for her?

Ukraine: Echoes Of The Third Reich - Yatsenyuk's "Subhumans"

Untermensch (German for under man, sub-man, sub-human; plural: Untermenschen) is a term that became infamous when the Nazis used it to describe "inferior people" often referred to as "the masses from the East," that is Jews, Gypsies, and Slavs; including Poles, Serbs, Belarusians, Russians, and Rusyns. The term was also applied to black people and Mulattos. Jewish people were to be exterminated in the Holocaust, just as Slavs in Generalplan Ost, who were destined to be removed from European territory under German control through murder and ethnic cleansing.

“They lost their lives because they defended men and women, children and the elderly who found themselves in a situation facing a threat to be killed by invaders and sponsored by them subhumans. First, we will commemorate the heroes by wiping out those who killed them and then by cleaning our land from the evil”, - he said.

Land parcels will be given out for free to the servicemen of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and other military formations, as well as to the employees of Interior Ministry and the Security Service of Ukraine that are defending territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country in eastern and southeastern regions of Ukraine.

Wasn't Land im Osten (land in the east) what the Third Reich also promised to volunteer soldiers?

Ukraine: These Tanks ... And The State Department Lies Again

The Ukrainian coup government claims that Russian tanks crossed the border and are in use by federalists in east Ukraine. First claims talked about three Russian T-72 tanks but later claims changed the type of the tank to T-64s. The tanks can be seen driving here (vid) and here (vid).

The State Department said Friday that Russia had sent tanks and other heavy weapons to separatists in Ukraine, supporting accusations Thursday by the Ukrainian government.

A convoy of three T-64 tanks, several BM-21 multiple rocket launchers and other military vehicles crossed the border near the Ukrainian town of Snizhne, State Department officials said. The Ukrainian Army reported Friday that it had destroyed two of the tanks and several other vehicles in the convoy.

“This is unacceptable,” said Marie Harf, the deputy State Department spokeswoman. “A failure by Russia to de-escalate this situation will lead to additional costs.” ... The T-64 is an obsolescent tank no longer in active use by Russian forces, but still stored in southwest Russia.

“Russia will claim these tanks were taken from Ukrainian forces, but no Ukrainian tank units have been operating in that area,” the State Department said Friday. “We are confident that these tanks came from Russia.”

There are several lies in this State Department claims. Ukrainian tank units are operating in the area against federalists. Here are several photos (scroll down) from Associated Press showing them - also pic 7 here. The tanks re T-64 BV, the upgraded subtype used in the Ukrainian army.

T-64BV – Features "Kontakt-1" reactive armour and "Tucha" 81-mm smoke grenade launchers on the left of the turret.

All Soviet era T-64 tanks were exclusively build and later upgraded in Kharkov, Ukraine. The Ukrainian state dealer Ukrspecexport is still selling such upgraded tanks. Distinct features of the T-64 BV subtype are marked in picture 17 of this gallery at armyrecognition.com. Two smoke grenade launchers at the left side of the turret - none on the right -, the boxes at the rear of the turret and the infrared searchlight to the left of the gun are special T-64 BV features which can also be seen on page 4-14.1 of the OPFOR Worldwide Equipment Guide (pdf) of the U.S. TRADOC DCSINT Threat Support Directorate.

Russia once had some 4,000 T-64s. It did not upgrade them but scrapped those it had.

Russia (not to be confused with Ukraine which still has about ~2200 T-64'ss) has been scrapping out their for years now and completed the process mid 2012. This is from 2013 IISS the Military Balance.

I do not have access to the expensive 2013 IISS "Military Balance" but someone with U.S. library access can surely look it up and confirm that.

To me, a former Bundeswehr tank officer, the three traveling tanks reportedly driven by federalists in the videos above are T-64 BVs like the Ukrainian army uses in east Ukraine. Also - as Russia no longer has any T-64s where else could the Ukrainian federalist have obtained those three T-64 tanks than by capturing them in Ukraine?

Militias under Lugansk captured three of the T-64 Ukrainian Armed Forces

According to representatives of the so-called self-defense forces People's Republic of Lugansk, common in social networks, militias won another victory in the suburbs of Lugansk.

It is reported that the Ukrainian military in a serious clash with the militia not only had to retreat, but to leave some heavy equipment and weapons. It is known that in order SDF Lugansk were three T-64 tank.

Apparently three T-64 BVs from the Ukrainian army were captured by federalists some five days ago and are moving somewhere in east Ukraine. There is zero prove at all that these T-64 BVs, of which Russia has none left, came from Russia. The State Department is again lying.

NYT Frontpage Sows Confusion

Iraq's "World Of Hurt"

The Jihadists of ISIS in cooperation with former Baathists continue their march onto Baghdad. Their recent surprise seizure of Mosul and further operations seem to have been well prepared for quite a long time:

“These groups were unified by the same goal, which is getting rid of this sectarian government, ending this corrupt army and negotiating to form the Sunni Region,” said Abu Karam, a senior Baathist leader and a former high-ranking army officer, who said planning for the offensive had begun two years ago. “The decisive battle will be in northern Baghdad. These groups will not stop in Tikrit and will keep moving toward Baghdad.”

The alliance between former Baathist and followers of the naqshbandiya Sufi order with the radical takfirirs of ISIS is a dangerous one. The former are professional militaries and as Pat Lang assesses:

The speed and effective direction of this offensive seems to me to show the participation of such officers as Sabr- Abd al-Aziz al-Douri.

If that is the case, then Maliki's army is in a real "world of hurt."

It is not clear what "Maliki's army" actually is. The Iraqi army officers of the divisions near Mosul seem to have been bought off and changed sides. Some 90,000 security forces deserted.

But its is unlikely that the Sunni forces, the Baathist and ISIS, can take Baghdad or even hold the ground they have taken so far. "Maliki's army" will be unlike the "Iraqi army". There are loyal divisions in the Iraqi military and there are many Shia now joining voluntary forces. The Shia authority in Iraq, Ayatollah Sistani, has issued a fatwa and called for war against the Sunni takfiris. Hundreds of thousand will follow that call.

Maliki's forces may be in a "world of hurt" for now but my guess it that they, in the end, will also win. They have more and better resources, access to the sea and support from Iran and likely also the United States. The Sunni positions have no defensible geographic features. The fight will be about cities on flat land and those can be starved and bombed into submission. Disunity within the Sunni forces will also evolve. In Syria ISIS did not do well with other anti-government forces, often fighting against them. The Sunni Sufi/Baathist followers of Izzat Ibrahim, a vice president under Saddam Hussein, will soon revolt against the radical life style ISIS will try to impose on the areas both groups hold. The more nasty force of those two will win internally only to be then stomped into ground by superior Shia forces.

As those two main groups struggle against each others the Kurds up north will be, for now, the laughing third. They already took Kirkuk, the oil-rich mixed Arab-Kurd city up north, and will not let it go without violence. They will be the next target when the Sunni Shia fight has been decided for either side.

All sides will bleed and, thanks to the U.S. war of terror, all Iraqis will contine to be in a "world of hurt" for years to come.

Ukraine: Those Tanks ...

Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said the tanks and several armored personnel carriers entered eastern Ukraine through a checkpoint manned by rebels in the Luhansk region. He said government troops attacked the convoy when it reached the neighboring Donetsk region, destroying part of it. The claim could not be independently verified.

Why bother to verify this "news" when one can just easily write "The claim could not be independently verified". Is that supposed to be journalism?

The Ukrainian interior minister, Arsen Avakov, told reporters in Kiev, the capital, that the armored column included three tanks, as well as armored personnel carriers and armored cars, and had traversed the border at a separatist-controlled crossing.

A video posted online appeared to show a tank, spewing exhaust, clanking down a street in Snizhne, a town about midway between Donetsk, a provincial capital controlled by separatists, and the Russian frontier. Reuters reported that two of its journalists saw the tanks in Snizhne but could not establish where they had come from; separatists on the scene said the tanks had been taken from a Ukrainian military warehouse.

The pictures I have seen seem to show a variant of the T-64 tanks that are modified and sold by the Ukrainian weapon industry and are used in the Ukrainian military. As far as I know Russia does no longer have such tanks in service. How difficult would it be for real journalists to verify that?

Other news from Ukraine:

The Ukrainian coup-government claims to have taken Mariupol, a city so far held by federalists. Taking is one part. Can they hold?

The coup government rejected a Gazprom offer to buy Russian gas for $385 per 1,000 cubic meter. That is about the same price that Ukraine's neighbors pay. But the coup government, likely advised by Washington, rejected that offer. It still did not pay the debt it owns to Gazprom and the flow of gas will accordingly reduced soon. There will be no immediate crisis as some reserves are kept in storage but the issue is destined to further escalate.

The "western" media start to report bits of the humanitarian crisis the Ukrainian government is creating with fight against its own people or "terrorists" as it claims. The honeymoon most "western" media have had with the coup government in Ukraine seem to end. Bits of the truth come into play. Unless of course the media that "reports" is the Washington Post.

Cordesman Laments, Confirms Russian "Radically Different" Views

The Russian Foreign Ministry held a conference for Arab military experts to explain its view on U.S. "regime change" endeavors:

On May 23, 42 Arab military and security officials attending the third annual Moscow International Security Conference were briefed by a team of top Russian government officials on the growing danger of “color revolutions.” The uniform message presented by the Russian speakers was that the United States and NATO have adopted a new mode of warfare, focused on the use of irregular warfare forces, religious fanatics, and mercenaries, combined with the heavy use of information warfare. In a series of English language power-point graphs and maps, presenters gave a detailed chronology of the past decade, highlighting Western regime change operations in Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya and Yemen.

Russian military officers now tied the term “Color Revolution” to the crisis in Ukraine and to what they saw as a new US and European approach to warfare that focuses on creating destabilizing revolutions in other states as a means of serving their security interests at low cost and with minimal casualties. It was seen as posing a potential threat to Russian in the near abroad, to China and Asia states not aligned with the US, and as a means of destabilizing states in the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, and South Asia.

Such is certainly not solely a Russian view but are facts that many "western" observers have also written about and which are confirmed by official U.S. policy papers. But Cordesman will not have any of that. "Color revolutions" must be just a Russian phantasy and U.S. engineered "regime change" is simply a wild idea.

The end result [of the Russian view] is a radically different reading of modern history, of US and European strategy, their use of force, and US and European goals and actions from any issued in the West and in prior Russian literature.

One wonders about the lack of self-awareness of Cordesman (and others) who write such nonsense. Cordesman is right, the Russian view is radically different if you start from "western" propaganda in the media. "Regime change" seldom occurs there and when it is clad in "freedom" and "democracy" camouflage. So how could the Russians ever get the idea that "color revolutions" and "regime change" are instruments of the "west"? Could it be that the Russians know because they read what Anthony Cordesman writes?

The United States and its allies, however, face a second threat. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has become steadily more authoritarian, corrupt, and repressive. ... Yes, the United States might have to help in spite of his total unfitness to rule and Iraq's desperate need to expel him and his cronies from the country, but U.S. aid must be conditional and tied to the fact that al-Maliki is an authoritarian thug. The United States should also quietly do everything possible to push him out of power and into exile.

So the solution of the crisis in Iraq, rooted in U.S. "regime change" there, is to instigate another regime change in Iraq. That would certainly, like the Iraq war, not further destabilize the situation?

Not the Russians that are crazy in there analysis but rather people like Cordesman who evidently fit Albert Einstein's definition of "insanity".

Iraq: The Civil War Restarted

After Mosul yesterday the insurgents in Iraq, the Jihadists of ISIS, but also other groups including Baathists, have now taken Tikrit and are threatening to take Samara which its important Shia shrines.

This would not have been possible without the help, or at least acquiescence, of the local population. Paul Mutter at the Arabist explains at length how the situation developed over the last years and why the Sunni population hates the Shia leaning government of Prime Minister Maliki and its rather sectarian security forces. It explains why those security forces fled while being pelted (vid) with stones by the locals. Many people have fled Mosul and other areas but this may be less out of fear of ISIS than out of fear of Iraqi army artillery fire and bombing against it.

There is certainly no need for conspiracy theories here. The local reasons fully explain the conflict and the current events. Sure, the situation would not have developed as such without the U.S. "war of terror" and the "regime change" attacks against any ruler noncompliant towards Washingon's demands. The decapitation campaigns against the leaders of Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Syria managed to isolated al-Qaeda and fellow Jihadist outfits in the small patch between Afghanistan and West Africa. Some success ...

A few developments of today deserve special mentions.

The Turkish consulate in Mosul was taken by ISIS and the Turkish personal there is now in ISIS custody. I had earlier seen tweets that mentioned an offer by Kurdish forces to evacuate the consulate to safety. The Turks had rejected that. Now the Turkish Prime Minister is demanding NATO consultations about the captured diplomats. This is pretty ridiculous. Without logistic support from Turkey for the insurgents in Syria ISIS would never have developed as it has.

ISIS march towards Samara now seems to meet some resistance. The Iraqi air force is bombing some of ISIS's convoys and the shrines are fiercely protected by Shia militia. Muqtada al-Sadr has called for a formal reintroduction of such sectarian militia and support was also expressed by the Grand Ayatollah Sistani. Maliki is pulling all reliable troops towards Baghdad to prevent ISIS from entering in force. The civil war between Shia and Sunni in Iraq, temporarily suppressed under U.S. occupation, bribes and torture during the "surge", has restarted. Iraq may now well fall apart.

What will the U.S. "elite" say about this fantastic mess it created? "It sure is a good thing that Iraq does not have WMDs..."

A Syrian War Spillover: ISIS Attacks Mosul

While the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is fighting other Islamists in Syria's east it has gained enough resources to also launch capable attacks in Iraq. In January it captured Fallujah, a conservative Sunni city. Last week it attacked Samara and threatened to capture the Shia shrine of Imam Al-Hassan Al-Askari. The Iraqi army reinforced there. But that attack on Samara seems to have been a diversion.

Today ISIS set out to capture Mosul, Iraq's second biggest city. The government troops there were, allegedly, told to not resist or deserted and fled. ISIS took over prisons and police stations and released some 3,000 of the prisoners - many of whom will now join its ranks. It robbed banks and replenished its already large financial resources. It captured tons of new weapons, ammunition and trucks. The civilian airport is in its hands. Civilians are fleeing the city.

Prime Minister Maliki, with a yet unstable coalition after he won a recent election, has little capabilities to fight back. The Iraqi army alone is unlikely to be able to take on ISIS and the Sunni Anbar tribes that support it. The Iraqi air force is too small to make a difference. Maliki will have to resort to sectarian Shia militia and will have to arrange a new coalition with the Kurds. ISIS has helped him there as it recently attacked political offices of President Talabani, one of the two major Kurd leaders.

Iraq will need further support to push ISIS back. We may soon see some rather weird coalitions growing against it: Iraqi Kurds allied with Shia Iraqi Arabs and the more secular Iraqi Sunni tribes; the U.S. air force riding shotgun for the Iraqi military in coordination with special forces from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

Without its bases in east Syria ISIS would be incapable to achieve such gains. This spillover of the Syrian conflict should be an alarm signal even Washington can not deny. The Syrian government troops will be needed to tear ISIS down. The U.S. must now turn away from the insurgents in Syria and support the Syrian government troops in their fight against the common enemy. Unless that happens the ISIS problem will only fester and threaten more states in the Middle East including Jordan and Turkey.

Ukraine: Time Is On Russia's Side

It would be a mistake if Russia would do this. The U.S. is only waiting for such a move. It could then again push the "Russia=Aggressor" meme and gain even more influence over Europe. The Cold War Version 2.0 that would ensue is in Washington's interest, not in Moscow's.

Russia has all the economic means it needs to press the U.S. puppet in Kiev into some agreement. That may take a bit of patience though. The Saker thinks time is on the Kiev side and prolonging the situation would help the coup government. I do not agree with that. There is no harm to Russia when it just sits back and waits until the economic crisis in Ukraine lets the Kiev regime crawl to Moscow and declare its defeat.

Peace Moves On Syria

In a decree published by state media, Assad commuted some death sentences to life imprisonment, reduced jail terms for many offences and canceled some others altogether.

Foreigners who entered the country "to join a terrorist group or perpetrate a terrorist act" would receive an amnesty if they surrender to authorities within a month, the decree said. Kidnappers who free their hostages and army deserters would also be covered, it said.

This amnesty, especially for foreign fighters, comes just as the Iranian President Rouhani visits Turkey, the country that gives the main logistic support to those foreign fighters:

“Regional and international issues are on both countries’ agenda. Violence, radicalism, and the fight against terror are important issues Iran is following in the region and in the world. We will continue our dialogue and cooperation on this issue with all friendly countries. We will exchange views with Turkish officials during my talks today and tomorrow on issues such as violence, terrorism, sectarianism and radicalism, and on the ways to combat them.” Rouhani said in the press conference in Tehran.

Rouhani’s plane was carrying an Iranian delegation composed of one vice president, seven ministers and a number of businessmen.

Iran seems to offer business deals in exchange for less hostile Turkey position on Syria. But nothing will of course change unless the Saudis, the main financial supporter of the insurgency in Syria, cuts the money pipeline. That is where Russia comes in:

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Saudi Arabian counterpart Prince Saud al-Faisal discussed in a telephone conversation on Monday the developments in the Middle East, as well as the settlement of the ongoing conflict in Syria. ... “Particular attention was paid to the task of political and diplomatic resolution of the crisis in Syria and other conflict situation in the region.”

The press service [of the Russian Foreign Ministry] added that the high-ranking diplomats also touched upon the issues of bilateral cooperation development in the trade and economic, as well as energy spheres.

Again the offer is business in exchange for less hostility. Maybe greed can win? The three above points together seem to be part of an initiative by Iran, Russia and Syria to move the other side away from its current position. It is not clear that such a move will work now but it is a good opening for further talks.

Meanwhile the so called opposition is doing its share to finish the conflict:

Deir Ezzor Province: 17 fighters from the Islamic battalion and 28 other at least from ISIS were killed in yesterday clashes in the village of Khasham and in south of Sor town in the western city of Deir Ezzor.

Ukraine: Poroshenko's Hope For "Western" Help Is Deluded

This means a lot of trouble for the people in the Ukraine, east AND west:

Ukraine's new president Petro Poroshenko said his country would never give up Crimea and would not compromise on its path towards closer ties with Europe, spelling out a defiant message to Russia in his inaugural speech on Saturday. ... Poroshenko stressed the need for a united Ukraine and the importance of ending the conflict that threatens to further split the country of 45 million people. He said it would not become a looser federalised state, as advocated by Russia. ... Poroshenko's speech drew an ovation from guests at a ceremony attended by Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and senior EU officials.

The Saker calls the speech a declaration of war. That may well be right.

Russia will need to tighten the screws a bit. Be polite at the outside, concede in public but make sure that Kiev will feel more and more pressure through secondary channels.

I doubt that the "west" will take any real risk over Ukraine or even put up enough money to save it from ruin. In the end Ukraine will be alone facing a rather angry bear. If Poroshenko, as it seems, thinks different, he is clearly deluded.

D-Day Propaganda Misses The Soviet Contributions

While it is given much emphasis in the "western" view of the second world war Operation Overlord, the invasion on D-Day and the following month of fighting at the Western front, were strategically less important than the Soviet operations on the Eastern front. Without the parallel Soviet Operation Bagration the invasion of fortress Europe in the west would likely have failed. Looking at the numbers of forces involved and German forces destroyed one might even argue that Overlord was just a diversion to keep a few German divisions busy while the Soviet attack in the East destroyed whole German armies.

At the Tehran conference in winter of 1943 Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin aligned their strategies:

The declaration issued by the three leaders on conclusion of the conference on 1 December 1943, recorded the following military conclusions:...The cross-channel invasion of France (Operation Overlord) would be launched during May 1944, in conjunction with an operation against southern France. The latter operation would be undertaken in as great a strength as availability of landing-craft permitted. The Conference further took note of Joseph Stalin's statement that the Soviet forces would launch an offensive at about the same time with the object of preventing the German forces from transferring from the Eastern to the Western Front;

The partisan brigades, including many Jewish fighters and concentration-camp escapees, planted 40,000 demolition charges. They devastated the vital rail lines linking German Army Group Centre to its bases in Poland and Eastern Prussia.

Three days later, on June 22 1944, the third anniversary of Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, Marshal Zhukov gave the order for the main assault on German front lines. Twenty-six thousand heavy guns pulverised German forward positions. The screams of the Katyusha rockets were followed by the roar of 4,000 tanks and the battle cries (in more than 40 languages) of 1.6 million Soviet soldiers. Thus began Operation Bagration, an assault over a 500-mile-long front. ... [T]he Soviet summer offensive was several times larger than Operation Overlord (the invasion of Normandy), both in the scale of forces engaged and the direct cost to the Germans.

By the end of summer, the Red army had reached the gates of Warsaw as well as the Carpathian passes commanding the entrance to central Europe. Soviet tanks had caught Army Group Centre in steel pincers and destroyed it. The Germans would lose more than 300,000 men in Belorussia alone. Another huge German army had been encircled and would be annihilated along the Baltic coast. The road to Berlin had been opened.

In total some 70-80% of German losses occurred in the East. In 1944 there were 228 German divisions in the East compared to a total of 58 divisions in the West (and South). In June, July and August 1944 alone the Soviets completely destroyed some 28 German divisions. A bigger German force than the 15 divisions that existed on the Western front in France on D-Day and the weeks thereafter.

It is embarrassing to see how many propaganda lines are spend on D-Day compared to the few acknowledgments of the much huger Soviet efforts and casualties on the Eastern front.

Ukraine: Kerry Urging For "Evidence" Of Russian Involvement

Secretary of State John Kerry accused the Kremlin of fomenting the unrest, calling the protests the work of saboteurs whose machinations were as “ham-handed as they are transparent.” Speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he added: “No one should be fooled — and believe me, no one is fooled — by what could potentially be a contrived pretext for military intervention just as we saw in Crimea. It is clear that Russian special forces and agents have been the catalysts behind the chaos of the last 24 hours.”

QUESTION: But, Mr President, the United States and the White House claim they have evidence that Russia intervened in the conflict, sent its troops and supplied weapons. They claim they have proof. Do you believe that?

Unveiling "Western" Hypocrisy Russia Connects Syria And Ukraine

Australia, Luxembourg, and Jordan are planning to circulate a new U.N. Security Council resolution that diplomats say would authorize the delivery of humanitarian aid into Syria through four border crossings without approval from President Bashar Assad's government. ... Diplomats familiar with the draft said it is under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which means it could be enforced militarily. It would authorize humanitarian access at three crossings from Turkey and one from Iraq. ... Some diplomats doubt Russia would approve a new humanitarian resolution under Chapter 7, but they say it could be a bargaining chip in negotiations.

That "bargaining chip" is worth nothing. Russia will veto any Chapter 7 resolution on Syria. There is nothing to bargain about that. But using that "bargaining chip" is now firing back.

For June Russia will be take up the presidency of the UN Security Council which allows it, to a certain extend, to set the agenda. The first point on that agenda is now the question of "human corridors" from Russia into east-Ukraine:

Russia will submit a draft resolution to the U.N. Security Council on Monday calling for an immediate end to worsening violence in Ukraine and the creation of humanitarian corridors in the east of the country, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. ... [The draft resolution] will also include "a demand for the creation, without delay, of humanitarian corridors though which peaceful civilians could leave combat zones if they wish," he said. The text would also call for guarantees of unhindered access for humanitarian aid.

"Now how about a Chapter 7 clause for that?" Lavrov will ask his colleagues.

Russia is actively linking the cases of Syria and Ukraine. That may not bring any progress on either issue. But by connecting the cases Russia can publicly demonstrated the utter hypocrisy of "western" policies. The target of this is the "western" public which is already against further "western" meddling in Syria as well as in Ukraine. I expect more such political "mirroring" of the two situations in the coming weeks and month.

This morning the Kiev regime sent jets and bombed the regional administration building in Luhansk which had been taken over by federalists. At least five people were killed. This is another escalation by Kiev and the puppet players behind the regime with the larger intend to openly draw Russia into a fight with NATO. Moscow will not fall for the bait.